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Today, the RIAA joined the 21st century. In addition to serving as the trade organization that serves and lobbies for the major label groups, the Recording Industry Assn. of America is the body that certifies albums gold and platinum —and in the case of Adele, soon-to-be-diamond— albums.

For decades, the certification has relied solely on sales (first physical and then a combination of physical and digital downloads). Starting today—and reflective of how people consume music— the RIAA will include on-demand audio, video streams and track-equivalent sales in its calculations. The certifying standards remain the same: Gold signifies sales of 500,000, platinum is for sales of 1,000,000, multi-platinum is for sales 2 million and above and the rarified Diamond designation is for albums that sell more than 10 million copies. It’s been a while since we’ve seen one of those…in fact, the most recently released album to reach that benchmark was Adele’s 2011 set, “21.” and before that, Usher’s 2004 album, “Confessions.”

Under the new guidelines, one digital or physical sale still counts as one sale; 1,500 on-demand audio and/or video song streams = 10 track sales = 1 album sale.

The RIAA also updated its methodology for certifying singles, which already took into account streaming. Effective today, RIAA’s Digital Single Award ratio will be updated from 100 on-demand streams = 1 download to 150 on-demand streams = 1 download.

“We know that music listening – for both for albums and songs – is skyrocketing, yet that trend has not been reflected in our album certifications,” said RIAA Chairman/CEO Cary Sherman in a statement. “Modernizing our Album Award to include music streaming is the next logical step in the continued evolution of Gold & Platinum Awards, and doing so enables RIAA to fully reward the success of artists’ albums today.”